A Town Called Asbestos

In Quebec, Canada, there's a town called Asbestos. It's an alarming name, one that conjures up images of lung disease and mesothelioma. So now that the town's asbestos mine, once the largest asbestos mine in the world, has closed... why haven't they changed the name?Dr Jessica van Horssen's book, "A Town Called Asbestos", was invaluable for my research. Its ISBN is 9780774828420, and it can be ordered from most libraries and bookstores.Her five-part TVclip series starts here: tvclip.biz/video/e-66YqEHkzA/video.htmlThe Story of Asbestos (1922): archive.org/details/0929StoryOfAsbestosAccording to Plan: The Story of Modern Sidewalls for the Homes of America (1952): archive.org/details/Accordin1952The Gruen Transfer: How To Sell Asbestos, Canada: tvclip.biz/video/KIpxelbkI0I/video.htmlUSGS public domain microscopy of asbestos: usgsprobe.cr.usgs.gov/picts2.htmlThe Canadian parliament quote is an official Hansard translation from the original French: www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/eppp-archive/100/201/301/hansard-f/35-2/153_97-04-10/153SM1E.html#9543I'm at tomscott.comon Twitter at twitter.com/tomscotton Facebook at facebook.com/tomscottand on Snapchat and Instagram as tomscottgo

There is a town in Russia called Asbest where they still have an open asbestos mine which is the primary source of income for the town. The occupants walk around the area near the mine as if it's normal, the asbestos is also in the air but they refuse to close the mine, it's like propaganda took over common sense.

I was born there. My dad, my uncles, my grandpa worked at the mines and yes they used dynamite, so after the explosions, there was this cloud of Asbestos coming over the city. We are all still alive though.The mine is closed now and the economy is dead.

I took a drive in my car to go see that town. It was okay, but its sort of a boring little place. Only interesting place to see is that overlook area above the open-pit mine. It would have helped if they had a 'chips' truck that sold freshly cooked french fries to the visitors that come to that attraction. But no, its is located in a residential area so such things are not allowed, you have to go back to the business section just to get something to eat.

So the town is more saddened by their mine being closed down than by all the problems they caused? They tried to downplay the effects of asbestos? A comedian making a joke about the town is the bad guy?

I like to see these types of pieces. I have basically no personal experience with mines, but it strikes me how quickly some people are willing to throw miners under the bus when they are no longer needed, even though the health effects were mostly suffered by miners and the blowback from regulations almost exclusively hurt them. These regulations were necessary (asbestos is definitely carcinogenic, after all), but they were rarely coupled with bills to help the people whose careers they destroyed. The country staked its very existence on people mining coal, asbestos, and other substances for many decades, only to discard them the way it does its war veterans. It's easy to understand the perspective that government regulations are unfair job-killing nonsense in this light.

I grew up within five kilometers of a village called America.In case you were wondering, the name came from the German 'Am Erica', which means 'On the heath'. Why it's a German name I don't know, considering it's a place in the Netherlands.

As a Canadian, I can confirm that there are many strange place names here.Vulcan, AlbertaSwastika, OntarioDildo, Newfoundland and LabradorNewfoundland and Labrador also has many other interesting place names.

"They just make fun of it from the other side of the world" *Cuts to The Gruen Transfer an Australian discussion program about ADVERTISING*How about before throwing shade across the planet, why not go talk to the 3 remaining residents of the town of Wittenoom, Western Australia.

I spent a summer at the Jeffries mine in Asbestos as an IT consultant. While there, I had numerous conversations with an old-timer who had started working at the mine at the age of 16 and now, 47 years later, was looking forward to his retirement. He grew up there, his house, the clothes on his back, every meal he ever ate, were paid for by working at the mine. The mineral asbestos did not cause him because he knew there are different types of asbestos not all of which are equally dangerous. The name Asbestos had no particularly negative connotation for him. It's not surprising that residents voted against changing the town's name. Though many residents are bilingual and all of them know what it means, the town's name remains in a foreign language, so it doesn't raise any negative emotions in them. This is no different than some of our neighbours south of the border in the US who hail from towns originally named by French (or more often French Canadian) settlers, sometimes with ridiculous names, but whose names mean nothing to them.

when your entire history is based on something, even if that something is proven hazardous, you still are attached to it. Its a lenghty and painful, slow process to disentangle the good memories from the bad, and to rebuild a heritage on more stable ground.

Since I'm Spanish and English is not my native language, there's something in "Asbestos" to make fun of? Seems like a normal name to me (Pd: I had no idea what asbestos was when started the video, after description of the mineral I realized that it is what we call in Spanish "Amianto" (Derived from french)